Everyone Needs To Calm Down — I haven't had a lot of time to jump into the fracas this weekend emerging about TechCrunch50 because the team has been busy organizing the conference, working with the Expert Panelists on scheduling issues and spending hours and hours working with the 52 startups …

O'Brien: What's next for TechCrunch's Michael Arrington? — Michael Arrington emerges at mid-morning from the bedroom of the house he rents in Atherton and wanders down a hallway past a handful of his employees already busy posting the scoops and analysis that have made his TechCrunch blog …

Google Says: We'll Get Our Own Data, Thanks — Not content to lease data from others who have satellites, Google today launched its own satellite into space. Via BeetTv, thanks Andy. — Talk about web meets world....this is yet another indicator of the integration of virtual and physical.

How Many Reviewers Should Be in the Kitchen? — FOR polar or lunar exploration, we are an intrepid species, eagerly vying with one another to be first. But we're not so brave when it comes to being the first to buy a particular product or service. We much prefer letting someone else go on ahead and report back.

Google Chrome Receives Heavy Criticism in Germany — It doesn't get any more “official” than this here. Yesterday, Saturday at around 20:07, Germany's oldest and perhaps biggest prime time news Tagesschau announced the following under the headline “Warning against internet browser"*:

Metallica: Master of YouTube? — Metallica, whose leaked album Death Magnetic is slated for a September 12 release, launched a promotion on YouTube today featuring the band's favorite Metallica cover songs on the site. Drummer Lars Ulrich introduces their selections in the video to the right.

Google at 10: Larry, Sergey & Me — It is not clear how old Google is - some argue that world's largest search engine operator is 13 - after all it operated in stealth for about 3 years before launching in September 1998. Many major news organizations are going with September 2008 as the tenth anniversary so I am going to play along.

CIA, FBI push ‘Facebook for spies’ — WASHINGTON (CNN) — When you see people at the office using such Internet sites as Facebook and MySpace, you might suspect those workers are slacking off. — But that's not the case at the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency …

Google Planning Offshore Data Barges — In a startling new take on data center engineering, Google has filed a patent for a “water-based data center” that uses the ocean to provide power and cooling. The patent also confirms Google's development of a container-based data center, describing …

On iTunes 8 and hunches; also iPhone 2.1 for Tuesday — On Friday, we posted a short roundup of what's expected in iTunes 8 thanks to the rumortastic stylings of Kevin Rose. The Pandora-like Genius feature, Genius Sidebar, Grid view, and more are all said to be included.

NBC Dumps Silverlight for NFL Streaming? Hardly — Today, Valleywag tried to string two separate events and some made-up facts together to spin the yarn that NBC was not happy with the performance of Silverlight on NBCOlympics.com, and dumped the technology for Flash for their new NFL streaming site.